Warrant details attack in hotel parking garage

By Zach Lowe
Staff Writer

STAMFORD - As long as Gary Fricker behaved like an armed robber, the woman he assaulted in a downtown parking garage in October was willing to cooperate if it meant keeping her family safe.

The woman, 40, let Fricker go through her wallet as he pointed a handgun at her two children inside the minivan at the Marriott Hotel & Spa, according to an arrest warrant unsealed yesterday.

"Take it, take everything," she told him. "Please leave us alone."

But she protested when Fricker forced her into the back seat and demanded she take her clothes off.

"Come on, don't do this, my kids are here," she told him.

Fricker, 54, went on to sexually assault her while pointing a handgun at her two children, both under 6 years of age, according to the warrant. The assault went on for several minutes, during which Fricker threatened to sexually assault one of her children and slapped her in the face so hard it blurred her vision, according to her statement to police.

Police apprehended Fricker three days later. Two officers tracking purchases Fricker made with the victim's credit cards spotted his van traveling on Interstate 684 near White Plains, N.Y., and chased him down.

He immediately confessed to the attack.

"She will never be the same," Fricker told the arresting officers. "I ruined her life."

Fingerprints found on the minivan match Fricker's, said Capt. Richard Conklin, head of the detective bureau.

Fricker is charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, three counts of first-degree kidnapping with a firearm, first-degree robbery and two counts of risk of injury to a minor.

The warrant also shows Fricker was a transient carpenter who did odd jobs around Connecticut and New York, stayed mostly in hotels and bought and sold goods at flea markets and pawn shops.

He had a permit to sell goods at a flea market in Wallingford on Oct. 13, the same day police apprehended him in Ardsley, N.Y.

Fricker, a Danbury native with about 20 arrests and 30 aliases on his record, lingered around the Marriott the day the assault occurred, records show.

A witness, another mother with her children in tow, said Fricker seemed to be following her in the garage about an hour before the Oct. 10 attack, according to the warrant. That woman and the victim picked Fricker out of an eight-person photo lineup.

The victim told police she was "100 percent sure" the man she picked out was the same man who attacked her, according to the warrant.

The victim got Fricker to stop the assault by saying her friend was on the way to the minivan, records show. Fricker then rifled through the victim's purse and stole her cell phone, five credit cards and wallet, which had $1 inside, the warrant says.

The assault started as a robbery, with Fricker approaching the victim from behind after she helped her two children through the sliding door of the minivan, records show. He jabbed the gun into her lower back.

"I think you need to give me all your money," he told her, according to the arrest warrant. "I have a gun."

She went to get her wallet from the front passenger seat as Fricker pointed his gun at her youngest child, the warrant says.

But Fricker suddenly expressed concern the woman would follow him if he let her go, then he forced her into the back seat and sexually assaulted her, according to the warrant. He walked away when a car pulled up and the victim started screaming.

Police arrived, and the detective bureau started an around-the-clock investigation that involved monitoring the victim's cell phone and credit cards in case the suspect used them.

Fricker made purchases with the stolen cards at six locations in Stamford, Westchester County, N.Y., and the Bronx, N.Y., over the next three days, including at the City Limits Diner on the city's West Side about an hour after the attack, records show.

Police stayed in constant touch with credit card companies to track the purchases, said Capt. Richard Conklin, head of the department's detective bureau.

Every time they learned of a purchase, they went to the scene, seized security tapes and exchanged information with local police, Conklin said.

Officers David Rodriguez and Angel Gonzalez were on their way to meet officers in Westchester County on Oct. 13 when detectives got a real-time hit: Fricker was trying to use one of the credit cards in Brewster, N.Y.

Rodriguez and Gonzalez pulled into a police turnaround area on Interstate 684 and waited for Fricker's 1994 gray Dodge Ram van.

They followed Fricker on a 20-minute high-speed chase before New York state troopers bumped his vehicle off the road. A search of Fricker's car turned up job invoices from recent work in New Haven, 16 pairs of eyeglasses and a card key for a hotel in Elmsford, N.Y., records show.

It is unclear where Fricker stayed in the nights after the attack. He has family in Stratford and other connections in New York, police said.

Fricker is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court on Dec. 19. He also is wanted for arson in Holly Hill, Fla., where police say he skipped parole after burning down his own apartment to get revenge on a woman.

Holly Hill police have said they plan to press charges against Fricker.

Update:
Stamford Rape Suspect Pleads Not Guilty